No Way Home Page 6

  But ever since Monday morning, when he had heard the news on the radio as he was saying grace over his breakfast, he had been preoccupied with the murder of a white girl, and the strain was beginning to show. His blood pressure was up. He could feel it. And his regular medication wasn’t helping. He’d been sleeping poorly.

  Yesterday had been the funeral and he had avoided driving in that part of town. This morning he felt as if he couldn’t avoid the issue for another day.

  If he could only talk to Elizabeth, he thought. She was sensible and, in her own shy way, she was strong. Through the thirty years of their marriage he had trusted her with many a tricky problem. But Elizabeth had decided to stay in Memphis when he was called to fill in at the Felton parish for a month. The Reverend Davis was one of a dwindling lot of circuit preachers. Like his grandfather and his father, he traveled through the great state of Tennessee, visiting one small black parish after another, spreading the Word and enjoying the hospitality of the good people of each town. Unlike his grandfather, who drove a horse and buggy, Ephraim drove a two-tone green Ford station wagon. Sometimes Elizabeth came with him, but on these long visits, when he was filling in for quite a while, she stayed in Memphis with their daughter and their grandchildren. Elizabeth was used to her husband’s weekend travels. It had been that way from the very beginning of their marriage when she had always gone along, liking the traveling and the church people they met. But as she got older she preferred to avoid extended stays in other people’s houses. She liked to be in the comfort of their own home, in her own bed with the rose-patterned spread, and spend every free minute with the grandchildren. With their African names and their boldness, she found them exotic. Secretly it gave her pleasure to see that they did not have the same fears in the world as she.

  In a way it was just as well, Ephraim thought. It would worry her terribly to know the problem he was in. Anything that had to do with violence scared her like a little rabbit. He had thought about calling her, but Bill and Clara Walker, who were putting him up, kept their phone in the front parlor, and he couldn’t very well outline the situation to Elizabeth without the whole household hearing about it. No, he had had to keep his own counsel. But now, the day after that poor girl’s funeral, his mind was made up.

  It was incumbent on him to tell what he knew. He had seen the girl and he had seen the fellow who was most likely her killer that night. Not that he had suspected any such thing at the time. If he had, he could have prevented it. But there was no way to know. And it was too late for “what ifs.” He walked into the kitchen where Clara Walker was cleaning up after breakfast.

  “May I use your phone, sister?” he asked.

  “Of course, Reverend. Our house is your house.”

  The Reverend Davis went into the parlor and dialed the county sheriff’s office. He had the number memorized by now from thinking about calling it. When Francis Dunham answered, he asked for the sheriff.

  “Sheriff’s not here,” said the dispatcher.

  “Where can I reach him?” the reverend asked politely.

  “He may not be back for a while,” Francis replied. “He’s over at the murder scene.”

  “All right, thank you,” said the reverend. He hung up the phone and stood there lost in thought, stroking his grizzled cheek. Clara Walker came into the parlor, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “I’ve got to go out, Clara,” he said.

  “Will you be back for lunch?” the old woman asked pleasantly.

  “Oh, yes. Long before lunch. I hope,” said the reverend.

  On the morning after his daughter’s funeral, Jordan Hill awoke in his boyhood bedroom. He could smell biscuits baking in the kitchen and the tinny radio was tuned to the gospel show that his mother had listened to for as long as he could remember. Her clear, small, deliberate voice faltered on the words of “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder.”

  Jordan lay with his eyes closed and let the bittersweet ache of the past envelop him. Here, in this bed, he had dreamed of fame and he had burned with love. He had crept home to this bed on the night that Michele was conceived, meadow clover still in his hair from where he and Lillie had rolled in the summer night. They hadn’t dared to stay out the whole night. They were too young. Their parents would guess. It was a shame, he thought. He wished now that they had slept there, as they wanted to, in that sweet-smelling field, in each other’s arms. Before they knew it they were married and had a child, and then he had left.

  He heard his mother tap on his door. “Breakfast, honey,” she said, as she always had. And now here he was, back in that same narrow bed. Not married. Not a father. Not a dreamer.

  “I’m coming,” said Jordan, and he got up.

  Jeni Rae was already at the table finishing a cup of coffee. Jordan kissed his mother’s dry cheek and sat down opposite his sister, who looked at him with sad, nervous eyes.

  “I have to go back today,” she said apologetically. She had a good job, working with computers in Chattanooga.

  “I know,” said Jordan. He unfolded a napkin and took a biscuit, although he did not feel the least bit hungry. “I didn’t even get to ask you. How’s the new fella? Burt, right? Mama told me about him.”

  Jeni Rae looked up at her mother in exasperation. Bessie continued to busy herself around the stove, oblivious to the conversation, her eyes distant and pink from the intermittent weeping.

  “He’s okay,” Jeni Rae said cautiously. “He’s divorced. Pretty nice guy.”

  She had never had much luck with men. She was too smart for most of the Felton boys when she was growing up and not pretty enough to be proud of it. She would have to be considered a spinster now, Jordan thought, but he still had hopes that she would find someone and get married. It would suit her now, much better than it would have when she was young.

  “Well, you tell him to treat you right or your little brother’ll come after him,” he said.

  Jeni Rae smiled. “Burt’s first wife had a crush on you. She used to watch your nighttime series.”

  “Well, a woman of good taste. And one of the few, I might add,” said Jordan. “Still, he’s well rid of her.”

  Jeni Rae smiled. “You ought to come on down to Chattanooga one of these days,” she said. “I’ve got a pull-out sofa bed. You could meet him then.”

  “That’d be nice.”

  Bessie walked over to the table and put a cast-iron skillet down on a trivet on the table. “Fried corn,” she said gently. “I know you don’t get this up North.”

  “No, ma’am,” said Jordan, taking a heaping spoonful and ladling it onto his biscuit, although his stomach churned at the sight of food. It was little enough to please her.

  “Jordan, will you drive me to the bus?” Jeni Rae asked.

  “I sure will,” he said. “I’m going out anyway.” Maybe that’s why his stomach felt so bad, he thought. The thought of going over there, where it happened, made him feel clammy all over, but he meant to do it anyway. It was almost like something he had to prove to himself he could do.

  “You’re a good brother,” she said, and she patted him on his graying head as she passed him on her way to her room.

  The Old Stone Arch Bridge, known alternately as Three Arches or just the Arches, was located at the end of a short dirt road, not too far from Bride’s Mill. At one time the sturdy old stone bridge had been part of the main route used by local farmers, but by now the mill was closed and the farmers drove their trucks on smooth bridges over modern highways. Trees and vegetation had overgrown the base of the Arches and nearly hid the bridge from view as you approached it. It was normally a quiet, deserted spot, but today the rutted road was dotted with cars. Three deputies, two in uniform and one in dungarees and a sweatshirt, scoured the bushes and the decaying riverbank where Michele Burdette had died. The rain from the day before had left the area muddy, and their clothes were already dirty as they rooted through the area in search of a murder weapon. A number of cars came and went at intervals along the ro
ad as people arrived to look.

  This familiar, all but forgotten spot had taken on new interest now that a murder had been done there. People came to stare and to shudder, as they imagined the body on the riverbank, as it had been described in the county paper, a frail girl face down in the muddy weeds, one leg twisted by the trunk of the weeping willow tree, arms outstretched to the bridge abutment, her head bashed by force of some blunt object not yet in evidence.

  The Reverend Ephraim Davis slowed his Ford wagon at the top of the street and pulled over. He had not come to gawk or to speculate, and it bothered him to see the parade of people coming and going. He could see them shaking their heads and murmuring to one another as they returned to their cars, but he knew that beneath that display of dismay they found it exciting. Ah well, he thought, it’s only human to be that way, and this is a small town. An event like this murder is not taken matter-of-factly.

  All the Reverend Davis wanted to do was to get out of his car, walk down there, find the sheriff, and tell him what he had seen. Then he could go home with a clear conscience. It seemed simple enough, and yet the preacher remained in his car. Another car pulled up, a brand-new Mercury Marquis, and the reverend recognized the man who got out. He was the local pharmacist, Bomar Flood. The wiry druggist was wearing a bow tie and Wallabees, and he fairly bounced down the road toward the bridge. The reverend recognized him because he had gone into the pharmacy to get a refill on his high blood pressure medication, and when he had admitted to the inquiring druggist that he was under a lot of stress, the nosy but nonetheless kindly man had pressed upon him some vitamin samples that he recommended to help relieve tension. The reverend had tried the vitamins, but he knew there was no capsule that could relieve his symptoms.

  The Reverend Davis sighed and chewed his lip. A family was emerging from the road now, the man in a flannel work shirt, the wife shepherding her two kids as if they had just taken them to an amusement park. Why, he wondered, had it been God’s will that he should see what he had that night? He was virtually a stranger in this county, and a black man to boot.

  He tried to imagine himself telling it to the sheriff the way it happened. Founders Day had been festive and tiring. The black people of Felton held their own fish fry to celebrate, and in this case, segregation was a matter of personal taste. The Reverend Davis had eaten his fill and then decided to take a basket of the leftovers to a shut-in from the parish who lived outside town. On his way home from seeing the old woman he was tired from the day, and her peach wine, and half indignant for her difficulties, so he was distracted and somehow got on a road he didn’t recognize. As he drove slowly along, looking for a turn he was familiar with, he saw the white girl walking down the road up ahead.

  Ordinarily he would not have stopped to ask a white girl for directions. It was the kind of thing that could start trouble. He knew better, but he was tired, and there was no one else around, so he pulled over and called to her, politely.

  What he remembered most was that she smiled and didn’t flinch when she saw that she was smiling at a black man on a lonely road. He was wearing his collar, and he was old. But that wouldn’t matter to some. He explained quickly that he was lost and looking for Route 31. She told him to go up and turn in at the road to Three Arches Bridge and head back the way he came until he passed three lefts and then turn. He remembered that she leaned on the window of the car in a friendly, easy way, and he was struck by her eyes. They were calm and wise in the way of one who has known some suffering. He recalled thinking that about her.

  Ephraim Davis shuddered. Maybe it had been a premonition about her. She had been murdered that very night. Even now it was hard to believe. She had been walking along, alone, in the direction of this very road, down to the bridge. Ephraim had thanked her for her help and he remembered that she said, “Good night, Reverend,” and that had gladdened his heart. He was an optimistic man by nature and he found comfort in the ordinary, courteous exchanges between black and white people.

  He had driven the car up to the entrance to this very road and turned in. As he was backing out, his headlights swept over a figure alongside the bridge, and he caught a glimpse of a startled face. A fellow taking a piss, he thought. He pulled out quickly and drove away, leaving the man to his privacy. Now, in retrospect, that brief moment took on a much more sinister meaning. She was a nice girl, a friendly girl, and someone had killed her that night, by that bridge.

  A sharp rap on his car window made him jump and cry out. He looked up and saw a young deputy peering at him with narrowed eyes, preparing to rap again on the glass with the butt of his service revolver. The Reverend Davis stared wide-eyed at the man, who indicated that he should roll down his window. Reluctantly the reverend complied.

  H^ stared at the deputy as sweat beaded in the folds of his coffee-colored forehead.

  “Get out of the car,” the deputy demanded.

  The reverend licked his lips and opened the car door.

  “Slowly,” the deputy ordered him.

  Ephraim Davis struggled out from behind the wheel and stood on the gravel beside the car.

  “What’s your business here?” asked the deputy, Wallace Reynolds. “You have some reason to be hanging around here?”

  “Nosir,” Ephraim replied automatically. “Just passing by.”

  “It looked like you were parked there to me.”

  Ephraim could feel his heart thudding arrhythmically. “I was just curious. Like these other folks,” he said.

  “If you’ve got no business, you just move along,” said Wallace, ignoring the reference to the other onlookers, who seemed to be coming and going undisturbed.

  The reverend immediately got back into the car and turned the key in the ignition. It did not surprise him. It was what had held him back so long in the first place. The reverend loved the South. He loved the people, and the weather and the beautiful, fruitful land. It was his home and he would never leave it. But he was not a naive man. He knew how things were here. People got along fine as long as everybody followed the unwritten rules. If he spoke up about this girl, he was crossing the line. He knew, with a sickening certainty, what they would think. He was a black man who had accosted a white girl on a lonely, country road. That was all they would need to hear.

  The Reverend Davis pulled away from the side of the road and did not look back, even though he caught the glint of the deputy’s badge in his rearview mirror as he made his escape.

  Jordan Hill pulled his rental car up onto the gravelly patch just being vacated by the two-tone green Ford. He could see that the deputy, Wallace Reynolds, was writing down the number of the station wagon’s license plate as it pulled away. Jordan got out of his car and walked to the top of the dirt road. He hadn’t expected to find all these cops and rubberneckers. Seeing it angered him. He had a sudden impulse to go up to people and shove them back, tell them to stop staring at the place where his daughter had been killed. At the same time he realized that he had become too used to New York, where murder came and went with the frequency of a newspaper. You cleaned up after them quickly, to make room for the next. People did not stop to linger and consider such a thing as a young girl’s murder for long.

  The deputy who had been copying the license number shoved his pad in his pocket and started past Jordan down toward the bridge. He glanced over at Jordan.

  “Is the sheriff here?” Jordan asked.

  Wallace nodded. “Down yonder.”

  Jordan thanked him and walked down the road. In the clearing near the bridge he saw Royce Ansley and Bomar Flood. Both men looked up at his approach. Bomar reached a skinny hand out and Jordan shook it.

  “Well, Jordan Hill,” Bomar said as he pumped Jordan’s hand. “It’s been a long time.”

  Royce just stared at him with tired gray eyes.

  “I didn’t get a chance to speak to you at the funeral,”

  Bomar went on. “How are things going for you up in New York?”

  “Fine, thank you,” Jordan
said grimly.

  Bomar still gripped his hand. “Such sad, sad circumstances that bring you home, though,” he said. Bomar’s eyes twinkled with tears as he looked out across the shallow muddy river. Jordan had known Bomar all his life. He was a foolish, sentimental old busybody who was also one of the shrewdest, most capable businessmen in the county.

  Jordan managed to free his hand and turned to Royce. “You found her,” he said in a flat voice to the sheriff.

  “Over there,” said Royce. A huge weeping willow tree hung low over the bridge, its long slender fronds nearly touching the water’s surface. The sheriff indicated the space between the tree and the bridgehead. “She was lying there.”

  Jordan looked at the spot. A deputy was squatted down there, using a flashlight to search the loamy riverbank beneath the willow.

  “They’re still looking for the weapon,” Bomar offered helpfully.

  “I see,” Jordan said evenly. “Have you found anything else? Sometimes fibers or hairs and such can be useful…”

  “We know about lab analysis, Mr. Hill,” the sheriff said sarcastically. “The twentieth century has arrived down here in little old Cress County, Tennessee.”

  “That Ronnie Lee Partin,” Bomar said nervously, shaking his head. “We knew he’d gone bad, but this…”

  The sheriff looked sharply at the pharmacist. “Don’t be adding to these rumors about Ronnie Lee. People are getting all worked up and we’ve got nothing that says it was him that did it.”

  Jordan looked at the sheriff in surprise. “You don’t think he did it?”

  Wallace Reynolds ambled over to where they stood and looked out across the river. Beside the young deputy, Royce looked haggard and weary even though, Jordan calculated, he was only in his mid-fifties. He was a far cry from the clear-eyed, broad-shouldered lawman Jordan had romanticized in his youth.

  “She wasn’t raped,” said the sheriff. “That’s the only reason I know of that a jailbird on the run would stop to bother about a young girl. Otherwise he’d just keep moving.”